蔡语婧：中国姑娘美国大学毕业典礼上演讲

     Greetings! Friends, family, faculty and staff. Welcome to Boston University on such a beautiful Friday night.

　　朋友们、家人们、教职工们，大家好!欢迎大家在这样一个美丽的周五晚上来到波士顿大学。

　　My name is Yujing Cai, and I am a graduate of the Master of Mathematical Finance program. I come from Nanjing, China, one of the oldest cities in the world. Right now, my family is sitting somewhere over there. They travelled literally across half of the world to see their baby girl graduate and talk in a language that they don’t understand. Therefore, I am tremendously grateful for this opportunity to share my perspective of 6 years at the Questrom School of Business.

　　我叫蔡语婧，我硕士毕业于数学金融专业。我来自中国南京——世界上最古老的城市之一。现在，我的家人坐在那里。他们毫不夸张地跨越了半个地球来看他们的宝贝女儿毕业，并且看我用他们不明白的语言演讲。因此，我非常感激能够在此分享我在凯斯特罗姆商学院六年的感悟。

　　One of the things I have always enjoyed doing while waiting for classes was looking at the different country flags in the atrium. Sometimes my friends and I even have a silly competition going on to see who knew more flags, and it often amazed me how many different cultures and nationalities are represented in our community.

　　在等待上课时，我最喜欢做的一件事就是看商学院大厅挂着的各国国旗。有时我还会和朋友们傻傻地比赛，看谁认得出更多的国旗。而我时常惊讶于我们的学生群体代表着这么多不同的文化和民族。

　　In a community so diverse, mutual understanding doesn’t come easily, so I tried hard to be adaptive from the very beginning. Soon, I found myself adjusting to the bigger food portion, and railways in the middle of the road. I even tried fortune cookies for the first time in my life! Soon, I felt so content with this progress and I gradually built a cozy nest with people of my culture, my age, and who thought and acted exactly like I did. Why bother talking to anyone else? The job-hunting process and coursework were already so tiring, and meeting people outside my circle just seemed so unnecessary and scary.

　　在这样一个多元化的群体里，相互理解并不容易，所以我从一开始就努力地让自己适应。很快我发现自己适应了这里更大的食量，以及马路正中间的铁路。我甚至人生第一次品尝了幸运饼干!很快，我就对自己的进步感到满意，逐渐建立了一个舒适圈。圈子里都是与我文化背景相似、年龄相仿的人，他们的思想行为都与我相似，我又何必再和任何其他人交流呢?找工作和学业已经让人疲惫不堪，跨出我自己的圈子去和其他人交往看起来是那么的没有必要，甚至令人恐惧。

　　Then one day this changed. It was a normal school day, and I was in the atrium looking at the flags as always. I saw that the flag of China was surrounded nicely by the flags of Canada, Colombia, Chile and DR Congo, and suddenly it struck me that I didn’t know anyone of those nationalities. What a waste it was for me to ignore the diversity of experience and opinions that the community had to offer! I was determined to change, but it wasn’t easy.

　　而这一天，一切都改变了。这是一个正常的上课日，我一如既往地在大厅里看着国旗。我看到中国的国旗被加拿大、哥伦比亚、智利和刚果民主共和国的国旗包围着，很是赏心悦目。突然间我惊觉到我并不认识来自这些国家的人。我意识到，自己忽略了凯斯特罗姆这个多元化群体提供给我的多样化的体验和见解，这是多大的浪费!我决心要改变，但这并不容易。

　　I experienced the awkwardness of having to explain a joke that nobody understood, the nervousness of asking questions about other cultures that seemed so obvious and silly, and the anger of defending my beliefs only to get suspicion and aloofness in return. But fortunately, these discomforts were soon taken over by things like the amusement of teaching my classmates to pronounce my last name, Cai, using a part of their tongue that they didn’t know existed, the excitement of promoting our Math Finance culture awareness events in the Questrom Graduate Council, the satisfaction of knowing all the authentic secret restaurants around Boston and the astonishment of seeing the world and myself in a way that I could never have imagined before.

　　我经历了不得不解释一个没人理解的笑话的尴尬，对别的文化提出问题但担心问题过于浅显和愚蠢的紧张，以及捍卫我自己的信念却只得到怀疑和冷漠时的愤怒。幸运的是，这些不舒适的感受很快就被别的事情替代了：比如当我教会我的同学们发我的姓氏“蔡”的读音时，他们使用到了自己以前都没注意到的舌头部位的快乐;当我向凯斯特罗姆研究生学生会宣传我们金融数学项目的文化活动时的兴奋，当我知道波士顿周围所有最地道餐馆时的满足，以及当我以自己从未想象过的视角去看这个世界和自己时的惊奇。

　　Over the past 2 years of graduate school and 4 years of undergraduate before that, I have been so proud to see that our school grew from School of Management to Questrom School of Business, and that our community is growing stronger and more vibrant each year, and this couldn’t have happened without the effort of everyone here to share, to inspire, and to embrace each other.

　　在过去两年的研究生院和之前四年的本科生活中，我很自豪地看到，我们的学院从管理学院成长为凯斯特罗姆商学院，而且我们的学生群体每一年都越来越强大，愈发有活力。而这样的进步，如果没有这里的每个人努力地去分享、激励和接纳彼此，是不可能发生的。

　　Let’s now think about the future. 20 years from now, what kind of challenges are we going to face, as family members, as business owners, as human beings? Nobody knows. To cope with that amount of uncertainty, we will need a diverse set of skills and knowledge, and most important of all, an open mind to learn. That’s why we have been so lucky to be part of the Questrom community that cultivated such freedom of an open mind.

　　让我们想想未来。20 年后，作为家庭成员，作为企业老板，作为人类，我们将面临什么样的挑战?没有人知道。为了应对如此多的不确定性，我们需要储备多样化的技能和知识，而更重要的是，要有开放的思想去学习。这就是为什么成为凯斯特罗姆群体的一部分是如此的幸运，因为它培养了开放思想的自由。

　　So, congratulations, class of 2017! For when you walk outside that door today, you are already equipped with one of the most critical skills to succeed in the future, the ability to embrace diversity. Thank you so much!

　　所以，恭喜在场的2017 届毕业生!因为当你们今天走出那扇门时，你已经具备了未来成功的关键竞争力之一，即拥抱文化多样性的能力。非常感谢!